UX London: Parti and the Design Sandwich

In my Parti & the Design Sandwich talk at UX London 2009, I outlined a structure to enable interaction designers to move toward a holistic product design in the face of many stakeholders, cross-functional groups, and diverse audiences.

Parti & the design sandwich is a structure for projects that allows you to go from concepts to products using the tools of design.

Parti (as defined by Matthew Frederick) is the central idea or concept of your project. A parti is expressed as a diagram depicting general structure and experiential & aesthetic sensibility.

In interaction design, that means a core interaction model. The inclusion of a core interaction model to represent the big idea is how a parti differs from product vision -though there are many parallels.

Getting a parti requires the consideration of factors outside of design such as technology opportunity, market factors, resources, alignment, etc.

Parti should focus on the aspects of an interaction that are unique to a project.

The whole team needs to buy in to a parti.

Parti is a guidepost for designing the many aspects of a project but the design sandwich helps us make informed decisions that bring a parti to life.

At the top of the sandwich are design principles. These are filters for making decisions.

At the bottom of the sandwich are design considerations. These are the factors you learn about and weigh when considering options.

The middle of the sandwich is where decisions about the design happen. Patterns, best practices, and testing -all can help inform decisions.

The distinction for me between best practices and patterns is nuanced –a pattern is a way you can do things in a specific context. A best practice is the way you SHOULD do things in a specific context.

Using parti & the design sandwich to structure a project means:

Considering all the things that are relevant to a design decision (design considerations).

Making use of patterns, best practices, and testing (when we can) to help inform decisions.

Evaluating those decisions by passing them through a filter of design principles so that all the decisions we make support the central idea of what we are making.

The point of which is to create a holistic design.

Your parti can change but don't give up on having a parti for your project.

Update: A listing of live Twitter messages from my presentation at UX London at disambiguity.com